Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester].

  • Lankester, Edwin, 1814-1874.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vegetable substances used for the food of man / [Edwin Lankester]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    power of vegetation is equally strong. The cane- plant is possessed of the power of tillering, in a man- ner similar to that shown by wheat, although not to an equal extent. — In preparing a field for planting with the cuttings of cane, the ground is marked out in rows three or four feet apart, and in these lines holes are dug from eight te twelve inches deep, and with an interval of two feet between the holes. Where the ground is level, larger spaces are left at certain intervals, for the facility of carting ; but there are many situations at the sides of steep hills where no cart can be taken, and in such cases these spaces are not required. The ripe canes are then conveyed to the mill in bun- ‘dles on the backs of mules, or are passed down to _ the bottom of the hill through wooden spouts. The hoeing of a cane-field is a most laborious operation- when performed, as it must be, under the rays of a tropical sun. Formerly this task was al- ways effected by hand labour, but, of late years, where the nature of the ground will admit of the em- ployment of a plough, that instrument has been sub- stituted, to the mutual advantage of the planter and his labourers. The planting of canes does not re- quire to be renewed annually ; in such a case the utmost number of labourers now employed on a sugar plantation would be wholly inadequate to its performance. The most general plan is for a cer- tain portion of the land in cultivation to be planted annually and in succession, the roots and stoles of the canes of the former year being left through the remaining parts of the plantation. From these, fresh canes, which are called rattoons, spring up, and are nearly as large the first year as_ plant canes. Rattoon canes have a tendency to deteriorate — at least in size— every year they are continued, for VOL. XY. 33